My name is Cian Megannety aka Moose. I am the Owner/Founder of Moose Electronics, which began life in 2009. I have been known to my friends as ‘Moose’ for more than a quarter of a century now, hence the name Moose Electronics.
I am based in Dublin, Ireland and music is my life – it has been pretty much since I first heard Black Sabbath’s Paranoid blaring on my dad’s stereo as a kid. Then attending a No Means No gig in Dublin at 16, with two of the best underground bands of the time Pet Lamb and Bambi, sucked me in to the underground music world. Over the years I’ve built a strong working relationship with local musicians and the wider Irish musical community. I have also got strong relationships with Dublin's finest music stores and have been their go to tech for pedal repairs.
My dad taught me to solder at a very young age which led to repairing cables and guitars. I started playing bass at the age of 15 and joined my first band a month later, which eventually led to building pedals. People asked where I got my sound from and that resulted in building pedals for others which I’ve now been doing ever since. I started out recreating classic effects and pretty soon I was tinkering with the circuits to get much more out of them. The current production run is a summation of a decade's learning and discovery. I'm proud to call them my own but with a respectful nod to the classic effects pedal lineage.
I strongly believe in working within both the local and international musical community and helping musicians make the best music they can. The pedals are all hand built and designed in house by myself with feedback from years of communication with musicians. The PCB design, artwork, silk screens and my current Dublin dealers are all close friends. The site and all the content for it has been created by friends and colleagues in the Dublin musical community - who also use the pedals in their various musical endeavours. I believe there is a huge benefit to this collective approach from design to build and we are all the better for that personal touch.
Interview with Stevie at The Thin Air
What’s your background with regards to music technology and electronics?
I grew up in a photography studio where my dad also repaired cameras and the like so I've been using a soldering iron since an early age. I also had an uncle who was a radio engineer and I learned a fair bit from working with him as a teenager. I studied popular music for a year after school. I then went and did a diploma in Electronics in DIT. After college I worked various jobs before I got into building pedals for a living.
How did your passion for pedals really begin?
I've always really liked distorted/fuzzed bass sounds. It probably began with the bass fuzz on the first two Weezer albums. They used a tall font green Russian Muff so when I saw one of those for sale at the bargain price of 60 euro I jumped on it (they were going for 2-300 online at the time). First thing I did was mod it for more mids then decided to make my own version which eventually became the DOBSKY vB. Bands like Dinosaur Jr and Mudhoney’s use of fuzz pedals was a big part of my youth. Later in my mid twenties I heard Big Business and they really sent me off looking for more and more fuzz and distortion sounds. My passion for building really began with wanting to try out loads of pedals I couldn't afford so I bought some kits, built those, sold some of them, modded some of them and just kept going from there.
Are you an active player yourself?
Yeah I play bass in three bands. Wild Rocket is where I get to indulge my love of fuzz bass to its fullest along with modulation effects like phasers and flangers. I’ve used various DOBSKY’s but these days I use a NOMAD for the Wild Rocket bass fuzz. My other band Worst is a bit more stripped back effects wise but still with plenty of filth. I get this filth from the SLEDGEHAMMER. Before Worst some us had a band called Wolfbait in which I just did noise and vocals with pedals and oscillators. No guitar in the chain. This taught me a lot about the sonic possibilities of effects pedals including of course how to use them in the wrong way! The third band, BB84, leans towards industrial drones using lots of weird effects on bass synth.
Are there many others doing what you’re at in Ireland on your scale or bigger?
There's definitely a few around but not sure if they are any bigger or the same scale. The two that stick out for me are Ian at Guerrilla Devices and Jimmy at Super Electric.
What kind of bands are you into, especially in terms of informing your output?
I like a lot of music mostly involving distorted sounds, heavy psych, sludge, noise rock, space rock, drone and noise. You get the picture... heavy distorted riffs and noise.
What are your all time favourite pedals/sounds, and what records are most crucial in shaping your relationship with them?
Nothing will ever touch my love of the 90s green Russian Big Muffs that I mentioned earlier, and this is what initially led to the experiments resulting in the creation of the DOBSKY vG and subsequently the DOBSKY vB which I refined even further.
After that it's 70s octave fuzz sounds like the Ibanez Standard Fuzz/Univox Superfuzz and Foxx Tone Machine which is the inspiration behind the NOMAD. Flower Travellin Band - ‘Satori’ really kicked off that sound for me but I had known of the Superfuzz for years via The Who and The Beastie Boys. I think you can also hear that in the NOMAD which is a sort of lovechild of the killer bass fuzz of the Beastie Boys and the guitar tone of Flower Travelling Band.
Boris and The Melvins always have killer fuzz and distortion sounds and their influence is fairly clear when you take a listen to the BATTLEHAMMER demo.
The tremolo sound on Spacemen 3's How Does It Feel? made me want to try a Vox Repeat Percussion. They're quite hard to find so I built my own and tweaked it to perfection and it’s since ended up as the Cosmic Tremor-lo.
Big Business, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr, Hawkwind, Buttholes Surfers, Witch, Whipping Boy and of course My Bloody Valentine have also given me more of my favourite sounds on records.
Do you have a particular ‘flagship’ pedal you’re really specialised in? One that you really feel is as good as anything else out there?
The DOBSKY Fuzz would have to be my flagship pedal and it's the one I've built and added to perfectly suit my own needs. I don't think there's much point in building pedals that aren't at least as good as what's out there. Since that one the NOMAD and lately the SUNDRIVE have become favourites and may take over as the flagship pedal.
Who uses your pedals?
Apart from my own bands mentioned earlier here's a few of them; Slomatics, Girl Band, Gnod, Herder, Bong, Squarehead, Fontaines DC, No Spill Blood, Conan, The Cosmic Dead, Headless Kross, Bismuth, Kid Karate. So mostly heavy underground bands but also plenty of bands on the catchier end of things. Check out the ARTISTS page for a huge list.
Which bands have the best pedal setups in the country?
Mine haha. I'm not sure really it's such a subjective idea. Slomatics always sound amazing so maybe them. Straight forward and effective. Ian from Squarehead/Kid Karate always sounds amazing. Girl Band are untouchable as far as use of effects go, up there with the mighty My Bloody Valentine, no question there. Not even the Edge comes close in my humble opinion.
How does one get into pedals?
As a user - buy or borrow them. As a builder - probably buy some kits, of which there's a tonne available for the diy-er these days. Never be afraid to experiment and break the rules.
Who are your favourite pedal brands out there at the moment? I, for example, picked up a Fuzzrocious demon king, which is a great pedal, if a touch too processed sounding compared to my Fulltone OCD. What do you tend to look for in a pedal?
Earthquaker Devices are doing great things, taking what was a small time operation into a fully fledged multiple employee company. Nick at Dunwich Amps has helped me out quite a lot with enthusiastically sharing his electronic design skills, including doing great PCB layouts for me. DAM pedals will always be close to the top of the list of inspirations. Zvex would be up there too and both were real early entries into the world of smaller "boutique" builders that are still doing great things. Then whoever had the great idea of adding a mid control to big muff pedal, probably Jack Orman of AMZ, which is more of a DIY resource but hugely influential.
Could you describe your approach/process when designing each pedal? Does it start with a few references, and taken from prior circuits, or more from scratch?
I mostly start with a prior pedal and then start incorporating building blocks from various other pedal designs. Then it’s a case of tweaking and experimenting until I reach something that feels unique enough to offer to people as something I can call my own. The other approach I use is having someone come to me looking for something to be customised to their needs and this collaborative approach can lead to great ideas. The BATTLEHAMMER came from myself and Nick at Dunwich getting together to build the ultimate rat based pedal for Jon from the doom band Conan. We essentially took my tweaked and tuned Rat, which I had pushed to get the best low end possible from and he added a very powerful and really musical eq section to it.
There's very little designed from scratch in the world of effects pedals despite what many will claim. Even the earliest Fuzz Face’s were based on circuits provided in the transistor data sheets, of course tweaked to the builders taste, which is where the magic really is.
Is the Dobsky Fuzz a reference to Ivan Dobsky from Monkey Dust? (personal q., haha)
Yes I love Monkey Dust so when I was trying to think of a name for my Russian Muff based pedal Ivan Dobksy seemed like a solid reference and so the Dobsky Fuzz was born.
